


Don't Do As You Wish, Do As I Ask

by liseuse



Category: Harry Potter - Fandom
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-05-31
Updated: 2010-05-31
Packaged: 2017-10-09 20:05:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/91041
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liseuse/pseuds/liseuse
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Pansy struggles to balance her mother's desires with her own.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Do As You Wish, Do As I Ask

**Author's Note:**

> Many many many thanks go to my beta [](http://rose71.livejournal.com/profile)[**rose71**](http://rose71.livejournal.com/) for her last minute hard work on this. All mistakes are, obviously, mine and not hers. Also, thanks to [](http://such-heights.livejournal.com/profile)[**such_heights**](http://such-heights.livejournal.com/) for pointing me towards the fest.

  
There was a knock at the door, and as Pansy wearily put down her pen Christiania's head poked around the door.

"Sorry! Didn't mean to intrude. Am I intruding? Were you terribly busy?"

Christiania, Pansy thought, looked a little like a mole when she was being this irritating. Her glasses would slip down her nose and her hair seemed even more frizzy. "No, no. Just finishing off this report." Pansy smiled encouraging, "Can I help?"

"It's just that, well. Your mother? Is firecalling. And I know that you said you didn't want to be disturbed by anyone other than Hermione or Draco, but she is most insistent on speaking to you." Christiania smiled, a little wobbily. "Sorry."

"My mother is really not your fault." Pansy stood up and dusted off her skirt. "I'll come through to your office."

\--

  
"I'm home!" Hermione called as she locked the door behind her. "Hello?"

"In here." Pansy shouted from the kitchen where she was sat at the table.

Hermione walked in, dropping a shopping bag on the floor, and sank wearily onto a chair. "Remind me that I am never ever going to Borough Market again after work. I nearly got killed. By people with prams. Someone trod on my foot and then dropped a watermelon on it. They didn't even apologise. And that all came after I had to deal with that idiotic witch from International Relations and her so-called _bright_ idea that we enhance the Argentinian treaty by hosting some sort of sporting event in their honour. Because recent sporting events have been such a success! I mean there were the drug scandals in the Quidditch World Cup, the horse-racing debacle and oh, God, that awful awful evening we had to spend watching people demonstrate metamorphic gymnastics. Are you all right?"

"That was an abrupt stop." Pansy smiled, slightly and poured herself another glass of wine. "I'm fine. Why wouldn't I be?"  
"I don't know." Hermione leaned forward. "It's why I asked. You look all pinched."  
"Pinched?" Pansy quirked an eyebrow at Hermione and stood up from the table. "Oooh, apricots. Yum!"

"Yes, pinched. And don't wriggle out of it with declarations of love for fruit. It won't work. You only usually get that look when you've been talking to your mother."

Pansy nodded. "I have been talking to my mother." She took a mouthful of wine and started to unpack the shopping bag. "My sister's pregnant."

"The apples don't go in the fridge. Why don't you sound happy?" Hermione walked over and took the apples from Pansy's hand, set them down in the fruit bowl and led Pansy back over to the table.

Pansy summoned her wineglass and hesitated. "Because now I'm next. She's going to want me to get pregnant now. Viola's child won't count. She married that Russian, remember. And changed her surname. I don't have any brothers. So I am now being depended upon to provide an heir to the estate."

"Won't Viola mind?" Hermione snagged a sip of wine. "That her child's out of the running, I mean."

"Huh? Oh, no. The Russian is very wealthy. Plus, she's moved to Moscow and I don't think she really speaks to mother about anything beyond diamonds, woodcraft and now what her insides feel like." Pansy stared morosely at the tabletop.

"The Russian is called Ivan. You might want to start using his name." Hermione raised an eyebrow and summoned Pansy's cigarettes. "Go on. Have one. I'll open a window."

"Thank you." Pansy reached around to dig in her coat pocket for a lighter. "Sorry. You were saying something about sport?"

"Do not be more ridiculous than is necessary. We are going to talk about this." Hermione smiled. "Once I've got out of these damn tights anyway."

\--

  
"It's just that, well mother, I don't want to have a child. I never have." Pansy sat, nervously, on the very edge of her mother's uncomfortable guest chair.

"I am afraid, Pansy, that that argument will not cut any ice with your father and me. You are now the only person in this family who can have one and carry the name on. Your sister changed her name, remember. Cut that affiliation. Oh, the child will be a Parkinson at heart, but it will be a Belotserkovsky by name and thus legally." Pansy's mother flicked an invisible speck of dust off her robes and stood. "Besides, your father and I have let you have this little fling with the Granger girl. We have said nothing. Been impeccably polite. Now it is your turn to do something for us."

Pansy bit her tongue, and carefully straightened a pleat in her skirt. "You have _let me_ have my _fling_? Need I remind you that I am 25 years old. That I have a job, all of my own that I got all on my own with no help from family connections. That I pay my own bills and that I live an entirely independent life. I do not need your permission to conduct my love life." Clenching one fist slightly, behind her skirt, Pansy stood and walked across to the mantle-piece to face her mother. "I am aware that you would have wished for something different for me. That does not means that I am going to go and get myself pregnant in order to make you happy. Donate all the damn money to St. Mungo's for all I care. Send it back to Belgium; I'm sure there is someone in the family who would be grateful for it. Drop it in the Thames. Do not use it to blackmail me."

"Never speak to me again in that tone." Pansy's mother drew herself up to her full height and fixed her gaze on Pansy. "I have not fought to keep this family together in order to be repaid with such impertinence. We are not going to let the money leave the family. We already give enough of it away that I feel completely justified in asking this of you. It is your duty." Madeliefje flicked her wand, impatiently, and Pansy watched as a bottle of brandy skimmed through the air towards the side-table.

"My duty?" Pansy said through gritted teeth and carefully took a breath. "I will not have a child just so that you will have someone to pass money on to. Or a name. I am not bringing another life into this world purely for you to be pleased with yourself. If, and that is an _if_ mother, I ever decide to have a child it will be because I want one, because I feel the need to have one, because I want to carry on my chosen family. The one I have with Hermione. It will not be in order to suit you."

\--

  
Hermione could hear the stomping of an unhappy Pansy from the front steps. Closing the front door quietly behind her, she tiptoed into the sitting room and turned the volume down on the CD player. "Glad as I am that you have mastered the ways of the CD player, I do think the neighbours might not appreciate it quite as much."

As Pansy wheeled around, her cheeks stained with tears and a distraught expression on her face, Hermione kicked off her shoes and took Pansy's hand. Tugging her down so they were both sat on the sofa she produced a handkerchief from a pocket and handed it over. "I take it that your mother was not receptive to your views on children?"

"No." Pansy snuffled into the handkerchief and curled herself into Hermione's side. "I think it might be easier if I hated her for it. I can see where she's coming from, though. She's so terrified that there'll be no one to pass the name onto, let alone the money, and that's what's important to her. Oh, she wants me to be happy, and she's glad that Viola's happy and married, but more than anything she wants to know that the Parkinsons won't die out."

"Would it really matter?" Hermione asked hesitantly.

"Yes." Pansy said incredulously. "Of course it would matter. We're an old family. There are no boys in this generation. She can't even rely on cousins passing the name down because it's all girls in this family right now. The only boy for years died when he was five. And he was a third cousin, removed about eight times or something ridiculous." She snuffled into the handkerchief once more and tucked her head under Hermione's arm. "I just don't want children. Or, at least, I don't want them right now. I like going out and not thinking about people being dependent on me. I don't want to have the rush home from work so that I can spend the evening knee-deep in children and the clutter they bring with them. And if I do have children, I want to have them with you. For you. Not for my mother and the entire fucking clan. I just, I, I just don't know what I'm going to do about it. She's going to kill me."

Hermione kissed Pansy gently on the forehead. "She is not going to kill you. She'll be upset, but she'll get over it. You're not saying you'll never have children, just that you don't want them right now. You've got years and years ahead of you in which to have children. Besides, I don't want them now either. I have things to do. Not that your mother will care about that bit."

"She called this a fling and said that she and father had let me have it." Pansy's voice was a monotone as she repeated her mother's words. "I don't think I've ever been more angry with anyone. Not even Draco, and fuck knows he's done enough to piss me off over the years."

"Forgive me for asking this," Hermione smiled hesitantly and curled herself further around into Pansy, "but, _who_ would she want you to have children with? I admit I don't know everything about the wonderful world of magical medical science, but as far as I know you'd still need a man at some point."

Pansy snickered. "I don't know! I was thinking about that on the way home. I mean, she couldn't ask Draco because his family would want an heir to take their name, ditto Teddy and he's got his hands full with his sister anyway. She'd get the second son of some minor family that already has male heirs, I imagine. I think there's a family back in Brugges that sounded interested in Viola. But the oldest son got married and promptly gave the world three sons. So his younger brother was supposed to marry me." Seeing Hermione's shocked expression Pansy giggled. "Don't worry. I'd have had to agree! I wouldn't have done, obviously, but he's still a chance. Or one of the Killigrew family."

"The who?" Hermione asked. "I don't recognise the name."

"No reason you should. The girls were all a little bit doolally - more than Luna, for reference, and they were schooled at home by a tutor and the boys split between Durmstrang, that random Swiss school that I can never remember the name of and a little private academy in Cashel. They're a nice family. Hopelessly overrun with children, poor as church mice. Somehow more respectable than the Weasleys with it, but it would mean mother could offer them some money for the privilege, be sure that they'd make no claim on the child's name and she'd have the heir to the family that she so desperately wants."

"It's all so commercial." Hermione sounded horrified. "Whatever happened to falling in love, settling down and then deciding on it all?"

"Oh people do, but those of us who are not very interested in the other gender don't get to use that nice little equation. Families need heirs. Girls are expected to provide one. Boys are as well, actually. I imagine that in a couple of years Draco will be being hassled to provide his family with an heir. It is, obviously, a little easier for him. All he needs to do is get someone knocked up and give the baby his name." Pansy grated the last out, and then gave Hermione a consoling pat on the knee. "I don't agree with it darling, I'm just saying that that is how it is for him."

"It's not right." Hermione said, peevishly. "A baby should be wanted and loved and not just produced because someone feels the need to fulfil dynastic requirements."

Pansy shrugged. "I know. Really. But this isn't the same world as the one you grew up in. It's going to take a long time to change. Families don't care who you fall in love with as long as you have a child. Of course, people used to get married, have children and conduct relationships with the person they loved on the side. It was just easier. We don't have to do that, and I am grateful for it, but it does mean that the question of children isn't so easily solved."

\--

  
Perhaps, Pansy thought, one of the problems with having had the same assistant for ages was that you could interpret the way they were walking towards you office. Usually Christiania tip-toed slightly, there was a definite nervous cast to her walk at all times, but on this occasion she was attempting to walk as quietly as humanly possible. It was a mystery of the Ministry, Pansy thought with a wry smile, that this inevitably meant that Christiania trod on every single creaking floorboard between her office and Pansy's.

"Yes?" Pansy called and heard a clatter as a tray fell to the floor. Standing, with a raised eyebrow, she opened the door and glanced out to see Christiania picking up bits of tea-pot and looking distraught. "Don't worry about it. I'll get an elf. Don't tell Hermione though."

Christiania looked up with an expression of gratefulness that would have been adorable on a rescued kitten and was infuriating on the face of your twenty-nine year old, completely capable assistant. "Oh, thank you. I was just trying to be ever so quiet. Poor Jonson in the office over there has an absolutely rotten hangover and he told me that my breathing was causing him pain."

"Really?" Pansy said, biting the inside of a cheek to prevent a smile. "That was mean of him. Did you want something?"

"Your mother firecalled, just briefly, and told me to tell you that ..." Christiania stopped fumbling with the tea leaves on the rug and dug a notepad out of her pocket, "that everything is okay. Viola's done the sensible thing. I don't know what that means, though."

"Good." Pansy nodded firmly. "I do."

\--

  
"I'm free!" Pansy exclaimed as she danced into the kitchen. "Free!"

"Were you imprisoned?" Draco asked in an amused tone from the kitchen counter.

"You're not Hermione." Pansy looked a little confused. "Is she here?"

"She was." Draco said as he stood and took Pansy's shopping bags from her. "She dashed out for some yoghurt. Left me in charge of the stew. And the wine. I've made more progress with the wine to be fair. Your cooker confuses me."

"It confuses me too. I keep trying to light it with my wand. It doesn't like it." Pansy reached over and grabbed the bottle of wine and accio-ed a glass. "Free free free."

"Free from what?" Draco said and then jumped as Hermione bashed the kitchen door open.

"Sorry! Hands are a little full." Hermione sounded pained as she dropped the bags to the floor.

"Draco said you went for yoghurt." Pansy quirked an eyebrow at Hermione as her bags added to the ones Pansy had brought in. "Not an entire dairy farm."

"I saw some things. I may have bought the ingredients for that recipe you found last week." Hermione smiled, a little bashfully, and summoned a glass from the shelf. "Are we celebrating something? Because this is the good wine."

"Actually, it's my good wine." Draco interjected. "I brought it when we came for dinner, and then we never took it home again. Oh. And we're celebrating. Pansy is free apparently, but she just keeps repeating it and won't tell me what from. I'm hoping for tales of Scandinavian dominatrixes, trices. Never mind."

Hermione sat down on the free chair and kicked her shoes off, sighing deeply with relief. "Free? I thought you said you were very expensive." At Pansy's groan she smiled apologetically. "Sorry. Couldn't resist. Do you mean what I think you mean?"

"I do! I'm free!" Pansy trilled slightly and topped everyone's glasses up.

"How?" Hermione leaned forward and pushed the ashtray over to Draco. "Don't flick your cigarette into my pot-plant again. I will murder you."

"Ah, I see you don't need a Scandinavian dominatrix. You've got Granger. Excellent." Draco smirked at Hermione and ostentatiously tapped his ash into the ashtray.

"She does do wonderful things with ties." Pansy stole Draco's cigarette from him, took a drag and handed it back. "Free means that Viola has finally spoken to her Russian and they have come up with a compromise. Completely legal and everything. I think it involves letting my mother adopt one of the children, which would give it the Parkinson name and thus let it be eligible to inherit. Or something. I'm not sure. I heard my mother say 'so this means you are off the proverbial hook' and stopped listening."

"Does this mean you don't get any money?" Draco sounded scandalised. "Because I'm not funding your life of excess and decadence."

"Don't be ridiculous Draco, of course I still get money. It's all tied up in estates and things, but at least a third of the Parkinson fortune goes to me in some way. Most of it's awful country houses, though, and Circe knows how we'd sell them." Pansy did a little dance as she sat at the table. "Come on, you two. Get dressed up, I want to go and celebrate."

Hermione stood and raised her glass. "To Pansy, freedom and only doing things when you want to do them."

"To only doing things when you want to!" The answering chorus echoed around the kitchen and Pansy's smile did double duty as a light.


End file.
